REVIEW
published: 29 April 2022
Edited by:
Stamatios Papadakis,
University of Crete, Greece
Reviewed by:
Michail Kalogiannakis,
University of Crete, Greece
Julie Vaiopoulou,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
Greece
*Correspondence:
Yuanzhe Li
yuanzhe001@e.ntu.edu.sg
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Digital Education,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Education
Received: 24 December 2021
Accepted: 17 February 2022
Published: 29 April 2022
Citation:
Li Y, Xu Z, Hao Y, Xiao P and Liu J
(2022) Psychosocial Impacts
of Mobile Game on K12 Students
and Trend Exploration for Future
Educational Mobile Games.
Front. Educ. 7:843090.
doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.843090
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.843090
Psychosocial Impacts of Mobile
Game on K12 Students and Trend
Exploration for Future Educational
Mobile Games
Yuanzhe Li 1* , Zezheng Xu 2 , Yu Hao 3 , Peng Xiao 4 and Jingyan Liu 5
1
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, 2 China Foreign
Affairs University, Beijing, China, 3 School of Chemistry and Biomolecules Engineering, National University of Singapore,
Singapore, Singapore, 4 Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, 5 School of Communication
and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Due to the popularity and advancement of 4G/5G networks, mobile games have already
currently become profitable tools for major internet platforms. These games are even
refined to cover almost all age groups of the population rather than the young people. Yet
in the perception of the public, mobile games have always seemed to be associated with
various derogatory terms such as interfering with learning, addiction, and violence. K12
students usually have less self-control capability, and they are undoubtedly the biggest
advocates of mobile games. This paper summarizes the technological development of
mobile games from the aspects of hardware and software in chronological order. The
psychological and social problems that mobile games have brought to K12 students
are analyzed from a neutral perspective. At the end of the paper, the future development
of educational games and current limitations of mobile games are also given for the
explorations of future trends of game-based education. This position paper aims to
provide the insight of what psychosocial impacts that the current mobile games have on
the student, and it may also serve as a reference for the how the game-based education
has been developing according to the mobile technology wise.
Keywords: psychosocial impacts, mobile game, K12 student, future development, educational mobile games
INTRODUCTION
Due to the popularity of smart terminals and the advancement of 5G networks, mobile games are
currently the most popular type of games, as well as profitable tools for major internet platforms.
Mobile games can be combined from different levels and content categories, covering different,
personalities and preferences (Martin et al., 2020). As a result mobile games are now refined to
cover almost all age groups of the population, not just young people. Yet in the perception of the
public, mobile games have always seemed to be associated with various derogatory terms such as
interfering with learning, addiction and violence.
1 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
K12 students are refer to the students in the age group from
Kindergarten (usually 5–6 years old) to Grade 12 (usually 17–18
years old) (Kurt et al., 2022). Students in this age group usually
have less self-control capability, and they are undoubtedly the
biggest advocates of mobile game. When they play certain games
for long periods of time their behavior and psychological state will
be changed in a subtle way. The main issue is that mobile games
may contain unhealthy contents such as pornography, violence,
ignorance, superstition, etc. which implicitly affect the formation
of the correct value system and the healthy development of their
body and mind for these K12 students (Destyanto et al., 2017).
In addition, some young people indulge in mobile games due to
lack of self-control, which not only result in harmful influence on
their studies but also induces a series of negative social activities
and social relationship (Kurt et al., 2022).
The pioneers of communication science, Lazarsfeld and
Merton, argued that modern mass media have a clear negative
function of “psychoanesthesia.” Some violent mobile games
reveal the nature of the “psychoanesthesia” function in
another textual dimension: they create illusions through
inexpensive and negative entertainment, thus eating away
at the social mobility of those young people in an implicit
cultural way (Kurt et al., 2022). Craig Anderson found
that the “psychoanesthetic” mechanism of violent mobile
games increases the physiological arousal of aggressive
behavior, cognition, emotions, and violent impulses, and
reduces pro-social behavior in adolescents (Elsherbiny and
Al Maamari, 2021; Kurt et al., 2022). Accordingly, violent
behavior has become the main “product component” of
mobile games “inflicted” on adolescents. Moreover, its basic
social manifestations can be summarized in four points:
firstly, it creates and activates networks of thinking related
to violent aggression; secondly, it weakens the inhibition
process of violence; thirdly, the game’s violent reward rules
allow aggressive behavior to be imitated and reinforced in the
“mimetic environment;” and fourthly, the binary values of
right and wrong in games can reduce young people’s empathy
(Elsherbiny and Al Maamari, 2021).
Mobile games do not only imply a behavior, but also
contain a value, which might be sometimes anti-social in
nature. Violent mobile games on the Internet may portray
the grandeur, hooliganism, and banditry of triad bosses and
gangsters, contributing to the psychology of adolescent violence.
In particular, the propaganda of “materialism” in violent online
games can easily lead young people to abandon their original
morals and values, so that the “money first” mentality gradually
seeps into their minds and leads to a distorted way of thinking
and personality.
This position paper therefore infer the future development
of educational games from existing mobile games, and shares
some insights into the current limitations, and critically analyses
the above issues from a neutral perspective, discusses the
psychological impacts and social problems that mobile games
may cause for K12 students (Arteaga et al., 2012). It also offers
the future development of mobile games and the limitations
of current educational games in order to explore future trends
in gamified education. This paper can also be considered as
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
a reference on how gamified education is evolving in light of
mobile technology.
TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOBILE GAME
From Feature Phone to Smartphone
Nowadays, almost everyone who owns a smartphone has been
exposed to mobile games at one time or another. It may be a
mini-game embedded in a web page or app, or a large 3D online
game like “Arena of Alor” or “Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds”
(De Gloria et al., 2014). These games have a huge update from
the mobile games of over a decade ago, both in scale and in
audio and video experience. And most mobile phones now have
larger screens and touch screens have become the main way to
use mobile phones, which did not exist on the same level mobile
phones in 10 years ago, which has promoted the development of
mobile games (Rubino et al., 2015).
The continuous evolution of cell phone hardware has brought
about a constant change in the needs of gamers. There was a
time when the only requirement for gamers was that their phones
could run a particular game, but now gamers want smoother
games, no lag when playing online, and even want their phones
to be able to turn on the highest picture quality of the game
(Ma et al., 2019). This means that the hardware that provides
key performance in the phone and the network environment that
the phone relies on also needs to evolve to meet the increasingly
diverse needs of gamers (Wang et al., 2020). Gradually, mobile
phones and mobile games have worked together to promote
growth and form the industry shape we see today. In addition
to entertainment, mobile games also carry part of people’s social
needs in their daily lives (Yang and Gong, 2021).
Twenty years ago, the average person was still using 2G
networks and physical button phones were just starting to
become popular (Jang et al., 2019). At the time, most phones only
had a black and white screen of about 1 inch, and due to system
and network capacity limitations, only the games built into the
phone could be played, such as Snake, Tetris, etc (Figure 1).
These were indeed interesting, but they were just ordinary games
to kill the time.
After 2003, color screen cell phones and PDAs began to
occupy the consumers’ vision, the hardware performance of cell
phones began to improve, the software and system functions were
gradually enriched. At the same time, electronic games began to
appear on cell phones in various forms (Syahrivar et al., 2022).
Since Symbian had strict limits on the resolution and number of
threads for software development, and J2ME development had
a maximum memory limit, the vast majority of mobile games
did not exceed 1 MB in size until the new Symbian system
appeared in 2006, when these restrictions were lifted one by one
(de Byl, 2014).
The popularity of color-screened phones allowed game
developers to see the opportunity, and some very well-known
games such as Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Command
and Conquer, and many others launched dedicated mobile
versions (Berlo et al., 2020). Many small development teams and
2 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
FIGURE 1 | Representative mobile games from 1994 to 2019.
enthusiasts also developed board games such as chess, Texas
hold’em into mobile versions. A variety of mobile phone native
games began to appear at this time, such as “Tower Bloxx” and
“Galaxy on Fire” in 2005 were enjoyable for handheld gamers at
the time (Haney, 2017). Around 2005, when client-side mobile
games were just exploding, there were already many specialized
game makers developing mobile games for non-smartphones, but
limited by the speed and stability of cell phone networks, and
they were eagerly anticipating the popularity of 3G and 4G, but
failed to foresee the rapid explosion of smartphones (Sosins, 2013;
Manning and Buttfield-Addison, 2017; Papadakis, 2021).
From Keyboard to Touch Screen
In 2008, with the birth of iOS and Android, Apple successfully
pioneered the touch screen cell phone, after the mobile game
from the constraints of the physical keyboard, such as “Angry
Birds,” “Plants vs. Zombies,” “Fruit Ninja,” “Temple Run” and a
series of new hand quickly occupied the market share in 1 year
(Vaiopoulou et al., 2021). The introduction of Angry Birds made
the public realize for the first time that the era of mobile games
may be coming (Kalogiannakis et al., 2022).
“Angry Birds", developed by Rovio and launched in 2009,
is another phenomenal product. Throughout the game, gamers
only need to do one action, which is to press and hold the bird
on the slingshot in the screen to drag and release (Villasana
et al., 2020). Such a simple operation overturned the public’s
inherent impression of how mobile games are presented, so Fruit
Ninja and Cut the Rope, launched a year later, both became star
products at the time for their sophisticated gameplay design and
simple sliding operation (Thomas et al., 2019). Few people may
know that the first release of the game Doodle Jump in 2009 was
developed for touchscreen phones, and only a year later came a
version that supported physical button phones. That’s because
around 2010, the popularity of large-screen touch phones with
smart systems made a radical change in the way mobile games
were operated (Thomas et al., 2019).
The birth of the iPhone and the resulting trend in the use of
touch screen created not only revolutionized the user’s experience
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
of operating cell phones, but also made hand games free from
the limitations of the physical keyboard, with new operation
ways of playing other than “up, down, left and right” (Škařupová
et al., 2016). If we say that the high price of iPhone may to a
certain extent prevent the further expansion of the user scale of
smartphones, Android is waiting for the opportunity to fill the
gap to complete the last blow of smart phones to feature phones
(Ghosh et al., 2018).
Take iOS as an example, App Store is the only (or the main)
channel value, hand game developers still have the leisure of "slow
work, fine work," but by the limitation of iPhone ownership, the
income of developers at this time is much shabbier compared
with today (Bagaa et al., 2018). For example, in 2011, the highest-
grossing handheld game in China was "World War II Storm," and
its monthly flow was only $800,000 (Paseka and Schwab, 2020).
In 2010, Google announced its withdrawal from China
because of its refusal to censor content. Although Android as
an operating system was not affected much, but as we all know,
Google Play, a connected service, was given the risk of instability
(Liu et al., 2020). The reason why smart phones are "smart" is
that they allow users to obtain applications through channels
and support users to freely configure applications in hardware
terminals, when the official channels of Android are covered with
a layer of haze, coupled with the unique openness of Android, the
status of channel providers for distributing handicraft products
is increasingly important (Thien et al., 2020). This is the biggest
enlightenment brought to practitioners by the mobile Internet in
the outbreak stage.
From 2G to 5G
With the issuance of 4G LTE license by the Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology in 2013, domestic cell phone users
officially ushered in the 4G era (Karabiyik et al., 2020). In 2014,
the real-time competitive MOBA hand game “Vainglory” was
launched, emphasizing the real-time nature of network online,
while “Magic Spirit Summoning,” “Tower Legend” and other
nurturing RPG games, although the gameplay is focused on
the standalone part, the official will regularly update a large
3 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
FIGURE 2 | Evolution of mobile generation from 1G to 5G.
amount of game content to keep the game fresh and the passion
of gamers, so an efficient network becomes very important
(Wang et al., 2015).
4G networks (Figure 2) use LTE technology on the prime
1,800 and 800 M spectrum bands, with a theoretical maximum
mobile network speed of 100 Mbps and actual 10 M–30 Mbps.
5G networks use Massive MIMO technology in the 3.5 GHz
range, which can theoretically reach a wireless data rate of 1
Gbps, greatly increasing wireless data bandwidth and enabling
mobile games with less hourly delay and faster rate, giving gamers
a better and faster gaming experience (Zappone et al., 2016).
Mobile games are a cross-regional, cross-cultural, cross-racial,
and cross-religious entertainment. It allows gamers to realize the
ability to be entertained at home, on the subway, and outdoors
with gamers around the world at any time. These demands reflect
the advantages of 4G LTE and later 4G LTE-A networks, which
can provide bandwidth based on priority, allowing more traffic
to devices with higher download demands and transferring data
to multiple devices at the same time, thus making the mobile
network a stronger experience. Whether it’s skin updates for
MOBAs or massive updates for nurturing games, which can be
downloaded to gamers’ phones faster (Buzzi et al., 2012).
In 2015, “Arena of Alor” was publicly tested together with
“We MOBA” and other multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA)
games, and most handheld gamers were brought into the tide
of MOBA games (Buzzi et al., 2016). These games are not only
fast to get started, but also have compact gameplay and gorgeous
graphics effects, which not only require excellent performance of
network environment where the handheld gamers are located,
but also challenge the hardware performance of cell phones
(Zhang et al., 2017). The complex lighting and particle effects
in the game make the CPU and GPU in the SoC take a lot of
pressure; at this time, the modem in the phone can’t be idle
and needs to coordinate the network to cope with transferring
the various data that occur in the game. Such comprehensive
needs have led more cell phone manufacturers to start launching
products that emphasize cell phone performance and networking
capabilities (Chiang et al., 2021).
This trend has prompted more developers to bring a wider
variety of games with richer titles to the mobile platform. Almost
every year, several topical titles emerge, such as “Crackdown
3” in 2016, “Monument Valley 2” in 2017, and “World in
Pictures” and “Florence” in 2018, which expose more smartphone
users to the “video game” entertainment genre (Guo et al.,
2019). For most gamers, the connected competitive games like
2018’s Peaceful Elite handheld, Wild Ride 9: Racing Legends
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
and the new Call of Duty Mobile in 2019 are their best choices
(Guo et al., 2019).
From black and white screen feature phones to large screen
touch smartphones, not only cell phones have changed over the
past 10 years, but the way we work, live and play games has
changed dramatically. As 5G technology gets closer to us, mobile
games will take on a more diverse look with new technology and
new hardware, such as 5G cloud games will also bring richer game
products to more gamers, using 5G’s high speed and low latency
advantages, host and PC games will also become possible to load
in real time on the mobile side (Habiba and Hossain, 2018). This
will also bring a different game experience for handheld gamers.
The 4G era has brought about the rise of handheld gaming,
which has now became an important part of the global gaming
landscape, with countless numbers of handheld gamers, and the
demand for mobile gaming performance continues to increase.
The advent of the 5G era will change the game experience for
gamers at this stage, which is limited by equipment and network
latency (Akbar et al., 2021). Although 5G is still in its infancy,
it will definitely have a significant impact on the global gaming
market in the future (Oberst et al., 2017).
As 5G technology matures, one of its main applications is to
provide a smooth cloud gaming experience. In addition, the low
latency of 5G and the convenience of smartphones will make
mobile devices a key platform for cloud gaming. Due to the
advancement in the network, major mobile manufacturers are
now launching 5G gaming phones to cater to the market and
provide a better gaming experience to the gamers. Therefore
gaming phones have also become one of the selling points for cell
phone manufacturers.
PSYCHOSOCIAL EFFECT OF MOBILE
GAME ON K12 CHILDREN EDUCATION
PERFORMANCE
Public Awareness—Negative Content of
Mobile Game
Many elementary school students are addicted to mobile games
and cannot extricate themselves from games, some of them even
steal their parents’ money to recharge for playing games and
play truant. They only think about the mobile games all day and
all night, and think of all the ways to play games, so they are
not interested in studying at all and their academic performance
is in a mess. It seems obvious that the more time you spend
4 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
playing games, the worse your academic performance, and there
are studies that have found a correlation between time spent
on video games and students’ academic performance (Padilla-
Walker et al., 2009). But is poor academic performance really the
fault of gaming? It is important to note that “correlation” does not
mean “causation”: for example, just because “sleeping in shoes” is
associated with “getting up in the morning with a headache,” does
that mean that “sleeping in shoes causes headaches” is causal?
In fact, why do you sleep with your shoes on? The most likely
reason is that one forgets to take off one’s shoes before lying down
in bed after drinking too much, and this is the factor that has a
real causal relationship with “getting up in the morning with a
headache” (Seo et al., 2019).
A student who is repeatedly frustrated with his grades, expects
appreciation and has high expectations of himself, has no outlet
for his pent-up emotions. But in mobile games he can not only
vent his stress but also receive a quick reward (Chafouleas et al.,
2021). The situation of students who are already not excelling
in their academic performance will get worse because playing
games will waste time in learning, thus creating a vicious circle
(Laws and Millward, 2001), i.e., although playing games takes
away from our studies, playing games may only be one point
in the chain, and the reasons that lead us to play games are
actually more complex.
Why Are Games Addictive but Learning
Is Usually NOT?
Compared with learning, mobile games have distinct advantages
that games tend to have some measure the progress of
participants to some extent, meaning that their effort is visible
and obvious, whereas learning does not (Luder et al., 2020). There
is progress in learning, but it is a slow process and people are not
sensitive to small changes (Chen, 2017). The simplest example
should be hair, i.e., hair grows every day, but it is generally
unconscious. If you get a haircut once a year, and within a year
your hair changes from short to long, people around you will
not think you have changed, but 1 day you get a haircut and
it becomes as short again as it was a year ago, people will be
surprised and say what a big change you have made. But take
that big change and put it over a long period of time and it won’t
feel like much. It’s the same with studying, but many people fist
pump and swear, then study for a while, feel they haven’t made
much progress, and give up. This is the objective basis for the
old cliché on Know Your Enemy that “hard work doesn’t always
lead to progress” (Chen and Gregory, 2009). The game makes this
process visible, turning a large amount into many tiny amounts,
and it is important to feel that you are improving.
Long-Term and Short-Term Goals
The tasks set in the game are mostly achievable goals, not too easy
and not too hard. There is a lot of data analysis behind this degree
of accuracy (Wang et al., 2020). Increasing participation in games
is linked to their benefits and results. Not so with learning. The
average person does not have this analysis; you put a 500-page
book in front of them and they will not even read it because they
think it is so thick that they will not be able to finish it in their
lifetime (Hsieh, 2021). However, these are perfectly achievable if
they are divided into smaller goals after scientific analysis.
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
Rewards
The game does such a good job of this. It is clear on the game that
for everything you achieve, you will be rewarded accordingly and
your efforts will be recognized. On the other hand, learning, has
a great deal of uncertainty. Working very hard and not getting
good results happens to almost everyone (Bavelier et al., 2011).
This puts a lot of people off, so they choose not to try to work
hard, so if they succeed they will be complacent and think they
are clever, and if they fail it won’t matter, after all they haven’t put
much effort into it.
Uncertainty
A known reward will motivate people, but unknown factors will
really keep them going. A reward with appropriate uncertainty
will be exciting, it will increase people’s dopamine production
and fascinate people (Gentile et al., 2004). We encounter
same situation when we read a novel. But when listening to
a lesson, this is simply not possible. If we could figure out
how humans learn and what motivates people to act from the
development of games, then apply it beyond games, the value
it could create is immeasurable, and it would be a ground-
breaking thing.
The Psychosocial Impact of Mobile
Games
In fact, the psychosocial mechanisms behind playing games
deserve more attention than academic performance. Often the
decline in academic performance is the most easily observed, but
the relationship between playing video games and soft aspects
such as feelings of loneliness, loss, self-esteem, social anxiety and
social skills is often overlooked. These commonly overlooked
factors largely contribute to negative events that influence our
perceptions of mobile games (Han et al., 2009).
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory (Figure 3),
human needs are divided into five categories from low to high:
physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs, and
self-actualization needs. When the lower level needs are satisfied,
the next level needs will become the primary motivation (Boyer,
2015; Li et al., 2021). So when we have satisfied the two basic
needs of physiological needs and security needs, the pursuit of
spirituality will rise to become the main conflict. So people who
FIGURE 3 | Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory.
5 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
are not able to socialize properly have no way of satisfying their
social needs and other higher needs, so for such people there is
a greater need for a space to socialize and achieve things that
are not possible in real life. (Kowert et al., 2015) have found that
people who have low self-esteem in real life, are lonely, lack social
skills, and are less successful in real life tend to spend more time
in video games (Winter et al., 2016). In turn, playing video games
further exacerbates gamers’ feelings of loneliness and increased
dissatisfaction with life (Kowert et al., 2015).
A successful mobile game is inevitably appealing because of
the high sense of achievement that teenagers can feel in the
game again. Imagine that people who are not respected in real
life can be admired for their virtual achievements in the game,
either through kryptonite (spending money to increase combat
power) or through their skill in playing the game. Even if you
don’t make it to the top of the leader boards, you can still find
a presence in a variety of ways. Moreover, in online games,
without the constraints of real identities and conditions, gamers
can communicate more flexibly and with less embarrassment of
being rejected due to real conditions, communication between
people is easier and gamers can easily build closer relationships
through various tasks (Caplan et al., 2009).
These people who are dissatisfied with their real lives can
find a sense of presence in the game in a variety of ways
to escape their real-life dissatisfaction (Figure 4). However,
after being satisfied in the virtual world, when they return
to their real life, the gap will be even greater, and this will
deepen their dissatisfaction with their real life. In addition,
it is important to note that excessive play can also cause
distraction, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and
psychological disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder and
anxiety in children (Chan and Cheng, 2004; Bulduklu, 2017).
Anti-social Behavior Caused by Mobile
Games
The content of many mobile games is full of fighting and
killing, gunfire, wild and weird characters, mechanical and rough
movements, absurd plot and fast rhythm, which have a serious
negative impact on students’ moral and psychological health.
Those students who are addicted to games are often not calm
enough, restless, impulsive, indifferent to others, and more
violent, bringing certain destabilizing factors to the campus,
family and society. They are in reality, but their minds are
in the online world, and they are prone to schizophrenia
symptoms, and few children who are addicted to mobile games
are psychologically healthy. Nowadays, anti-social behavior also
brings much attention to mobile game study. Although video
games have been designed and developed to entertain (or
educate), it has to be admitted that many of them contain
violent content. According to data from Children Now 2001, a
non-profit organization concerned with children’s learning and
development, as early as 15 years ago, 89% of all games contained
violent content, and nearly half of them contained severe violence
(Bulduklu, 2017).
Researchers have found that excessive immersion in games
with antisocial content (violence) can easily lead to addiction
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
and that such games have a subtle effect on gamers: they lack
empathy and are prone to destructive behavior in real life. In fact,
for gamers, the violent stimuli provided by virtual worlds such as
combat are not only a stress relief, but also a training exercise that
allows them to become accustomed to such aggressive emotions
and destructive behavior in games, which they gradually carry
over into real life (Huizenga et al., 2009).
In a study conducted in 2011, Anderson and Bushman
surveyed over 4,000 gamers and found that violent games
increased aggressive emotions and decreased pro-social
behaviour. Both children and adults, men and women were
deeply affected by this (Foerster et al., 2019). This is not to say
that violent play necessarily leads to violent behavior. However,
when we are constantly trained to think about our enemies
in games and reinforced to react quickly and aggressively to
each other’s actions, we constantly rehearse this script in our
minds and feel threatened all the time, which translates into
real-life situations where we are also hostile to those around us
and develop “hostile attribution bias” (Venetz et al., 2014). For
example, if Ming knocks over my cup, I will think that Ming
thinks I am a bad person, that he is doing it on purpose, and that
I have to beat him up to show him so that he would not do it
again. But in reality, the aisle was too narrow and Ming was too
fat and accidentally knocked it over. This attribution error is the
“hostile attribution bias.”
It must be clear here that it is not the video game that causes
the gamer’s antisocial behavior, but the violent content of the
video game. It is pointless and even counterproductive to make
a blanket statement. We should advocate for the regulation of
the video game market and the development of sensible game
content, rather than a blanket ban on all video games.
FURTHER ACTIONS MAY TAKE FOR
CORRECT GUIDANCE
The Core Educational Value of Mobile
Games
Most scholars are studying how to make learning more
interesting, so that students can learn by doing as what the
mobile game does. This is the dream of our educational
researchers, and Dewey’s emphasis on “learning by doing” does
not seem to be working particularly well. In contrast, in a
virtual environment we can learn by doing, which is similar
to the real thing, improving students’ problem-solving skills,
creativity and other higher-order skills, and helping to develop
emotional and attitudinal values (Villasana et al., 2020). This is
why educational scholars are proposing to implement gamified
learning, using educational games to achieve gamified learning.
Gamified learning in a narrow sense generally refers to pure video
games, while gamified learning in a broad sense includes game
mechanics, game element design concepts, etc.
The core educational values of games are mainly acting on
the aspects of psychology, socialization, and culture. With its
effect on play motivation, playful thinking, and playfulness
(Figure 5), a good mobile game does need multiple aspects
6 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
FIGURE 4 | Addiction progress of mobile games and its different stages.
of knowledge, ability, emotions, attitudes and values (Schwab,
2018). Play motivation is the most fundamental and operational
value, emphasizing the use of play to motivate learning. Playful
thinking suggests going beyond playful forms and emphasizes the
design of non-playful learning activities as “games.” Playfulness
is the most meaningful value emphasizing that learners approach
the process and outcomes of learning with the same spirit and
attitude as play. The core link between the three aspects is deep
intrinsic motivation (Škařupová et al., 2016). Getting people to
do something because they are challenged and to be curious,
rather than being pushed to do something every day by external
rewards and pressures.
Gamification of Education/Educational
Mobile Games
In the design of educational gamification, it is important to
focus on an important issues: distinguishing the age group of
the user. Gamification of education is more suitable for the
FIGURE 5 | Core educational value of mobile games.
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
K12 age group and should generally be in the form of simple
games, with the degree of gamification decreasing with the age
of the user increasing; there will be some adults over 18 who
prefer educational products in the form of large-scale games
such as online games, but this may be a niche market (Abeele
et al., 2017). A light game should be a balance between learning
and gameplay, it is like a layer of ketchup in the middle of a
hamburger, it can be a little less, but too much is definitely not.
If the game is too complex, it will take away from the main
focus, the child will appear to be learning but spend more time
playing, and the level of emotional arousal will be too high, which
is not the desired learning effect. Don’t design a product to be
“revolutionary” right out of the box, ground it and then change it
incrementally, although this is the opposite of what Google’s Page
says (Huijsmans, 2019).
This is because schooling is absolutely dominant in the
educational lives of primary and secondary school children,
and most of the people who deliver schooling—the teachers—
have extremely difficult to change work habits and lack the
motivation to change. There are many reasons for this, which
will not be expanded. Therefore the initial product should ideally
be close to the actual working habits of teachers, close to the
teaching content of the school, find a real solution to certain high
frequency needs of teachers in their daily work and cut in, so
that they can first get started, develop trust and dependence, and
then expand step by step, it will be more feasible. Educational
products are not super viable just because they are gamified, and
you can’t expect them to get a lot of users and get the desired
conversion rate just because they are "happy learning" (Schneider
et al., 2020). It is always believed that educational products
for primary and secondary schools should be a combination of
online and offline. In addition to the online part of the product,
it also needs to include an offline package for teachers and
parents, including training, guidance, evaluation, consultation
and follow-up, and so on. For example, how teachers use the
product in the classroom, how they use it after school, or what
they do to provide daily feedback to parents, are all parts of the
product and need to be developed into an actionable solution, not
optional. Otherwise, even the best design will be short-lived and
will end up like a normal game after its life cycle. So, as well as
the product team, the operations team is equally important (Cha
and Seo, 2018). While designing the gamification, don’t forget to
7 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
build and polish the educational content itself, which is the main
part of the “hamburger.” Entrepreneurs are often in a hurry to get
their products to market quickly and can easily over-gamify them.
But the lifeblood of an educational product is still the quality of
education, and when the learning effect is not reflected, it will face
the dilemma of further development.
FUTURE TRENDS AND LIMITATIONS IN
EDUCATIONAL MOBILE GAMES
Future trends, from a technological perspective, combine
gamified learning with mobile learning; with VR/AR; with
intelligent bodies; with brain science; with artificial intelligence
and big data (Quelly et al., 2016; Black et al., 2018). If the research
is to solve students’ learning problems through mobile games, it
is necessary to combine various research results and educational
results from game design. Experimental research in this area has
been conducted and found it to be quite effective. Through this
experiment, it is found that the difficulty in developing this type
of game is decided by how it can really enhance their learning
effectiveness (Calpbinici and Tas Arslan, 2019).
Still, games are games, and still there are four major limitation
for the current development of educational mobile games.:
• The first major limitation is portability, that is, how what
is learned in a mobile game transfers to the real world, which
exposes the Achilles heel of mobile games. The challenges in video
games are often fictional and have no connection to everyday
life, but are rather a fantasy. The knowledge and skills that K12
students acquire in games such as battling dragons, racing jousts,
and Tetris are not meaningful to everyday life and therefore not
directly transferable.
• The second major limitation is simplicity. Mobile games
simplify complex systems to their core and are procedural
representations of the real world. The world we live in is much
more complex and often defies the simple logic of the game.
This results in learners often losing touch with the systems
modeled in the game.
• The third major limitation is that games lack real-life
environments. Mobile games are not designed to have an effect
on the gamer after the game is over. The K12 students are too
different from the world they live in, and the real world is too
complex. Even those games that have a realistic purpose, so-
called serious games or educational games, mostly fail in their
transfer from the game to the real world. This is good news
for those who fear that violent games make people violent, and
bad news for those who think that smart games automatically
make people smart.
• The fourth major limitation relates to the above question
about the environment. K12 students are usually unable to
spontaneously establish a relationship between what they learn
in mobile games and real life. They can grasp a great deal of
information in mobile games and remember it over time, but
are unable to recall the simplest historical data in the classroom.
The link between learning achievements in games and in the real
world is often overlooked by many K12 students and teachers.
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
Games open the door to the transfer of learning experiences,
but K12 students must go through this door themselves. For that
matter, the role of teaching behavior in the use of mobile games
is clearly underestimated. Learners need constructive support to
draw outcomes relevant to their own learning from a rewarding
play space. There may not be a fundamental difference in the
traditional sense of learning, but there is a difference in the logical
growth and understanding of games (Rahim et al., 2020). Besides,
the illusory nature of the mobile gaming experience makes the
transfer of results very difficult. In response, external forces are
needed to drive attention toward the potential and the knowledge
learned. Teachers can and should use this meta-perspective to
promote the pedagogical potential of play. The content of the
learning outcomes, the enhancement of skills and knowledge,
should be explored together with the K12 students. A bridge
between the virtual and real worlds is built when all these gamers
take note of the content and learning outcomes in question. The
questions that need to be answered on the teaching side are which
real-world environments can apply what is learned in the game
and which aspects of the game are worth learning from. And
gamers, the K12 students, should be motivated to notice this
connection and to test what they have learned in their everyday
lives (Kyriakou and Glentis, 2021).
CONCLUSION
This paper summarizes the technological development of mobile
games from the aspects of hardware and software. A neutral
perspective is given to analyze the psychological and social
problems that mobile games have brought to K12 students. At
the end of the paper, the insights of the future development
of educational games and current limitations of mobile games
are also addressed. The major task for the development is to
reflect on the content of the mobile game, which is not directly
accessible. It is difficult to examine what is learned with a critical
eye during play and must therefore be stimulated externally.
The act of teaching and learning enables knowledge and skills
transfer if the teacher has the ability to build bridges between
the virtual and real worlds. Radically speaking, it is only through
pedagogical support that the barriers to knowledge transfer in
gamified learning can be overcome and the potential for learning
unlocked. This new pedagogical role requires the teacher’s own
interest, as well as active access to the space of gamified learning.
This area deserves to be explored and experimented with and will
present teachers with new pedagogical challenges.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
YL designed the guideline of the articles. JL contributed to the
drafting of material for individual section. ZX and YH compiled
the writing and conducted the analysis. YH and PX aligned the
manuscript. YL and JL reviewed and provided corrections on the
original draft. All authors contributed to the article and approved
the submitted version.
8 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
REFERENCES
Abeele, M., Schouten, A., and Antheunis, M. (2017). Personal, editable, and always
accessible. J. Soc. Pers. Relat. 34, 875–893. doi: 10.1177/0265407516660636
Akbar, A., Jangsher, S., and Bhatti, F. (2021). NOMA and 5G emerging
technologies: a survey on issues and solution techniques. Comput. Netw.
190:107950. doi: 10.1016/j.comnet.2021.107950
Arteaga, S., González, V., Kurniawan, S., and Benavides, R. (2012). Mobile games
and design requirements to increase teenagers’ physical activity. Pervasive Mob.
Comput. 8, 900–908. doi: 10.1016/j.pmcj.2012.08.002
Bagaa, M., Taleb, T., Laghrissi, A., Ksentini, A., and Flinck, H. (2018). Coalitional
game for the creation of efficient virtual core network slices in 5g mobile
systems. IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun. 36, 469–484. doi: 10.1109/jsac.2018.
2815398
Bavelier, D., Green, C., Han, D., Renshaw, P., Merzenich, M., and Gentile, D.
(2011). Brains on video games. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 12, 763–768. doi: 10.1038/
nrn3135
Berlo, Z., van Reijmersdal, E., and Rozendaal, E. (2020). Adolescents and handheld
advertising: the roles of brand familiarity and smartphone attachment in the
processing of mobile advergames. J. Cust. Behav. 19, 438–449. doi: 10.1002/cb.
1822
Black, D., O’Loughlin, K., and Wilson, L. (2018). Climate change and the health of
older people in Australia: a scoping review on the role of mobile applications
(apps) in ameliorating impact. Australas. J. Ageing. 37, 99–106. doi: 10.1111/
ajag.12522
Boyer, B. (2015). Designer librarian: embedded in k12 online learning. Techtrends
59, 71–76. doi: 10.1007/s11528-015-0855-9
Bulduklu, Y. (2017). Mobile games on the basis of uses and gratifications approach:
a comparison of the mobile game habits of university and high school students.
Convergence (London, England) 25, 901–917. doi: 10.1177/1354856517748159
Buzzi, S. I. C., Klein, T., Poor, H., Yang, C., and Zappone, A. (2016). A survey of
energy-efficient techniques for 5g networks and challenges ahead. IEEE J. Sel.
Areas Commun. 34, 697–709. doi: 10.1109/jsac.2016.2550338
Buzzi, S., Colavolpe, G., Saturnino, D., and Zappone, A. (2012). Potential games
for energy-efficient power control and subcarrier allocation in uplink multicell
ofdma systems. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Signal Process. 6, 89–103. doi: 10.1109/jstsp.
2011.2177069
de Byl, P. (2014). Holistic Mobile Game Development with Unity. Google Books.
Available online at: https://books.google.com/books/about/Holistic_Mobile_
Game_Development_with_Un.html?id=_NAABAAAQBAJ (accessed July 11,
2014).
Calpbinici, P., and Tas Arslan, F. (2019). Virtual behaviors affecting adolescent
mental health: the usage of Internet and mobile phone and cyberbullying.
J. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. Nurs. 32, 139–148. doi: 10.1111/jcap.12244
Caplan, S., Williams, D., and Yee, N. (2009). Problematic internet use and
psychosocial well-being among MMO players. Comput. Hum. Behav. 25, 1312–
1319. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2009.06.006
Cha, S., and Seo, B. (2018). Smartphone use and smartphone addiction in middle
school students in Korea: prevalence, social networking service, and game use.
Health Psychol. Open 5:205510291875504. doi: 10.1177/2055102918755046
Chafouleas, S., Pickens, I., and Gherardi, S. (2021). Adverse childhood experiences
(ACEs): translation into action in k12 education settings. Sch. Ment. Health 13,
213–224. doi: 10.1007/s12310-021-09427-9
Chan, D., and Cheng, G. (2004). A comparison of offline and online friendship
qualities at different stages of relationship development. J. Soc. Pers. Relat. 21,
305–320. doi: 10.1177/0265407504042834
Chen, L. J. (2017). Critical components for inclusion of students with moderate
intellectual disabilities into general junior high school. Int. J. Dev. Disabil. 63,
8–16. doi: 10.1080/20473869.2015.1108006
Chen, W.-B., and Gregory, A. (2009). Parental involvement as a protective factor
during the transition to high school. J. Educ. Res. 103, 53–62.
Chiang, J., Lin, C., Chiang, Y., and Su, Y. (2021). Optimization of the spectrum
splitting and auction for 5th generation mobile networks to enhance quality of
services for iot from the perspective of inclusive sharing economy. Electronics
11:3. doi: 10.3390/electronics11010003
De Gloria, A., Bellotti, F., and Berta, R. (2014). Serious games for education and
training. Int. J. Serious Games 1. doi: 10.17083/ijsg.v1i1.11
Destyanto, A., Putri, O., and Hidayatno, A. (2017). Serious simulation game
development for energy transition education using integrated framework game
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
design. IOP Conf. Ser. Earth Environ. Sci. 94:012157. doi: 10.1088/1755-1315/
94/1/012157
Elsherbiny, M., and Al Maamari, H. R. (2021). Game-based learning through
mobile phone apps: effectively enhancing learning for social work students. Soc.
Work Educ. 40, 315–332. doi: 10.1080/02615479.2020.1737665
Foerster, M., Henneke, A., Chetty-Mhlanga, S., and Röösli, M. (2019). Impact of
adolescents’ screen time and nocturnal mobile phone-related awakenings on
sleep and general health symptoms: a prospective cohort study. Int. J. Environ.
Res. Public Health 16:518. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16030518
Gentile, D., Lynch, P., Linder, J., and Walsh, D. (2004). The effects of violent
video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school
performance. J. Adolesc. 27, 5–22. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002
Ghosh, S., De, D., Deb, P., and Mukherjee, A. (2018). 5G-ZOOM-Game: small
cell zooming using weighted majority cooperative game for energy efficient 5G
mobile network. Wirel. Netw. 26, 349–372. doi: 10.1007/s11276-018-1818-9
Guo, C., Gong, C., Guo, J., Xu, H., and Zhang, L. (2019). TCQG—software-defined
transmission control scheme in 5g networks from queuing game perspective.
Sensors 19:4170. doi: 10.3390/s19194170
Habiba, U., and Hossain, E. (2018). Auction mechanisms for virtualization in 5g
cellular networks: basics, trends, and open challenges. IEEE Commun. Surv.
Tutor. 20, 2264–2293. doi: 10.1109/comst.2018.2811395
Han, D., Lee, Y., Na, C., Ahn, J., Chung, U., Daniels, M., et al. (2009). The effect
of methylphenidate on Internet video game play in children with attention-
deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Compr. Psychiatry 50, 251–256. doi: 10.1016/j.
comppsych.2008.08.011
Haney, S. (2017). Swift 3 Game Development: Embrace The Mobile Gaming
Revolution By Creating Popular Ios Games With Swift 3.0 / Stephen Haney.
- Franklin. Franklin.Library.Upenn.Edu. Available online at: https://franklin.
library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9977533508903681 (accessed March 3,
2017).
Hsieh, C. (2021). Developing programmable robot for K12 STEAM education. IOP
Conf. Ser. 1113:012008. doi: 10.1088/1757-899x/1113/1/012008
Huijsmans, R. (2019). Becoming mobile and growing up: a “generationed”
perspective on borderland mobilities, youth, and the household. Popul. Space
Place 25:e2150. doi: 10.1002/psp.2150
Huizenga, J., Admiraal, W., Akkerman, S., and Dam, G. (2009). Mobile game-
based learning in secondary education: engagement, motivation and learning in
a mobile city game. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 25, 332–344. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-
2729.2009.00316.x
Jang, M., Lee, R., and Yoo, B. (2019). Does fun or freebie increase in-app purchase?
Inf. Syst. E Bus. Manag. 19, 439–457. doi: 10.1007/s10257-019-00420-z
Kalogiannakis, M., Zourmpakis, A., and Papadakis, S. (2022). Education of
preschool and elementary teachers on the use of adaptive gamification
in science education. Int. J. Technol. Enhanc. 14:1. doi: 10.1504/ijtel.2022.
10044586
Karabiyik, T., Jaiswal, A., Thomas, P., and Magana, J. (2020). Understanding the
interactions between the scrum master and the development team: a game-
theoretic approach. Mathematics 8:1553. doi: 10.3390/math8091553
Kowert, R., Vogelgesang, J., Festl, R., and Quandt, T. (2015). Psychosocial causes
and consequences of online video game play. Comput. Hum. Behav. 45, 51–58.
doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.074
Kurt, G., Atay, D., and Öztürk, H. (2022). Student engagement in K12 online
education during the pandemic: the case of Turkey. J. Res. Technol. Educ.
54(sup1), S31–S47. doi: 10.1080/15391523.2021.1920518
Kyriakou, G., and Glentis, A. (2021). Skin in the game: video-game–related
cutaneous pathologies in adolescents. Int. J. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 8, 68–75.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijpam.2019.09.002
Laws, G., and Millward, L. (2001). Predicting parents’ satisfaction with the
education of their child with Down’s syndrome. Educ. Res. 43, 209–226. doi:
10.1080/00131880110051173
Li, Y., Xiao, P., Dai, Z., Bi, B., Fu, D., and Hao, Y. (2021). “Opportunities and
challenges faced by the online educational services in the post-COVID-19,”
in . Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Education and Social
Sciences (ESS 2021), Xi‘an, 148–159.
Liu, E., Effiok, E., and Hitchcock, J. (2020). Survey on health care applications in
5G networks. IET Commun. 14, 1073–1080. doi: 10.1049/iet-com.2019.0813
Luder, R., Kunz, A., Pastore, G., and Paccaud, A. (2020). Beteiligung der eltern in
der inklusion und ihre sichtweise auf die integrative förderung ihrer kinder.
Vierteljahresschr. Heilpädag. Nachbargeb. 89, 278–290.
9 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090
Li et al.
Ma, T., Song, L., Ning, S., Wang, H., Zhang, G., and Wu, Z. (2019). Relationship
between the incidence of de Quervain’s disease among teenagers and mobile
gaming. Int. Orthop. 43, 2587–2592. doi: 10.1007/s00264-019-04389-9
Manning, J., and Buttfield-Addison, P. (2017). Mobile Game Development with
Unity. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Martin, F., Sun, T., and Westine, C. (2020). A systematic review of research on
online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018. Comput. Educ. 159:104009.
doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.104009
Oberst, U., Wegmann, E., Stodt, B., Brand, M., and Chamarro, A. (2017). Negative
consequences from heavy social networking in adolescents: the mediating role
of fear of missing out. J. Adolesc. 55, 51–60. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.12.
008
Padilla-Walker, L., Nelson, L., Carroll, J., and Jensen, A. (2009). More than a just
a game: video game and internet use during emerging adulthood. J. Youth
Adolesc. 39, 103–113. doi: 10.1007/s10964-008-9390-8
Papadakis, S. (2021). The impact of coding apps to support young children in
computational thinking and computational fluency. A literature review. Front.
Educ. 6:657895. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.657895
Paseka, A., and Schwab, S. (2020). Parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education
and their perceptions of inclusive teaching practices and resources. Eur. J. Spec.
Needs Educ. 35, 254–272. doi: 10.1080/08856257.2019.1665232
Quelly, S., Norris, A., and DiPietro, J. (2016). Impact of mobile apps to combat
obesity in children and adolescents: a systematic literature review. J. Spec.
Pediatr. Nurs. 21, 5–17. doi: 10.1111/jspn.12134
Rahim, S., Sahar, G., Jabeen, G., Aman Shah, A., Jahan, M., and Bibi, T. (2020).
Mobile phone in the lives of young people of rural mountainous areas of
gilgit-baltistan, pakistan: challenges and opportunities. Information 11:441. doi:
10.3390/info11090441
Rubino, I., Barberis, C., Xhembulla, J., and Malnati, G. (2015). Integrating a
location-based mobile game in the museum visit. J.Comput. Cult. Herit. 8, 1–18.
doi: 10.1145/2724723
Schneider, T., Baum, L., Amy, A., and Marisa, C. (2020). I have most of my asthma
under control and I know how my asthma acts: users’ perceptions of asthma
self-management mobile app tailored for adolescents. Health Informatics J. 26,
342–353. doi: 10.1177/1460458218824734
Schwab, S. (2018). Attitudes Towards Inclusive Schooling: A Study on Students’,
Teachers’ and Parents’ Attitudes. Münster: Waxmann.
Seo, Y., Dolan, R., and Buchanan-Oliver, M. (2019). Playing games: advancing
research on online and mobile gaming consumption. Internet Res. 29, 289–292.
doi: 10.1108/intr-04-2019-542
Škařupová, K., Ólafsson, K., and Blinka, L. (2016). The effect of smartphone use on
trends in European adolescents’ excessive Internet use. Behav. Inf. Technol. 35,
68–74. doi: 10.1080/0144929x.2015.1114144
Sosins, A. (2013). Gideros Mobile Game Development. Birmingham: Packt
Publishing, Limited.
Syahrivar, J., Chairy, C., Juwono, I., and Gyulavári, T. (2022). Pay to play in
freemium mobile games: a compensatory mechanism. Int. J. Retail Distrib.
Manag. 50, 117–134. doi: 10.1108/ijrdm-09-2020-0358
Thien, H., Vu, V., and Koo, I. (2020). Game theory-based smart mobile-data
offloading scheme in 5g cellular networks. Appl. Sci. 10:2327. doi: 10.3390/
app10072327
Frontiers in Education | www.frontiersin.org
Mobile Game on K12 Student
Thomas, G., Bennie, J., De Cocker, K., Castro, O., and Biddle, S. (2019). A
descriptive epidemiology of screen-based devices by children and adolescents:
a scoping review of 130 surveillance studies since 2000. Child Indic. Res. 13,
935–950. doi: 10.1007/s12187-019-09663-1
Vaiopoulou, J., Papadakis, S., Sifaki, E., Stamovlasis, D., and Kalogiannakis, M.
(2021). Parents’ perceptions of educational apps use for kindergarten children:
development and validation of a new instrument (PEAU-p) and exploration of
parents’ profiles. Behav. Sci. 11:82. doi: 10.3390/bs11060082
Venetz, M., Zurbriggen, C., and Eckhart, M. (2014). Entwicklung underste
validierung einer kurzversion des„ fragebogens zur erfassung von dimensionen
der integration von schülern (FDI 4-6) “von haeberlin, moser, bless und
klaghofer. Empirische Sonderpädag. 6, 99–113.
Villasana, M., Pires, I., Sá, J., Garcia, N., Teixeira, M., Zdravevski, E., et al. (2020).
Promotion of healthy lifestyles to teenagers with mobile devices: a case study in
portugal. Healthcare 8:315. doi: 10.3390/healthcare8030315
Wang, J., Gamble, J., and Yang, Y. (2020). Mobile sensor-based community gaming
for improving vocational students’ sleep and academic outcomes. Comput.
Educ. 151:103812. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103812
Wang, L., Wang, Y., Ding, Z., and Wang, X. (2015). Cell selection game for densely-
deployed sensor and mobile devices in 5g networks integrating heterogeneous
cells and the internet of things. Sensors 15, 24230–24256. doi: 10.3390/
s150924230
Winter, J., Wentzel, M., and Ahluwalia, S. (2016). Chairs!: a mobile game for
organic chemistry students to learn the ring flip of cyclohexane. J. Chem. Edu.
93, 1657–1659. doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00872
Yang, Q., and Gong, X. (2021). The engagement–addiction dilemma: an empirical
evaluation of mobile user interface and mobile game affordance. Internet Res.
31, 1745–1768. doi: 10.1108/intr-11-2020-0622
Zappone, A., Sanguinetti, L., Bacci, G., Jorswieck, E., and Debbah, M. (2016).
Energy-efficient power control: a look at 5g wireless technologies. IEEE Trans.
Signal Process. 64, 1668–1683. doi: 10.1109/tsp.2015.2500200
Zhang, S., Wu, Q., Xu, S., and Li, G. (2017). Fundamental green tradeoffs:
progresses, challenges, and impacts on 5g networks. IEEE Commun. Surv.
Tutor. 19, 33–56. doi: 10.1109/comst.2016.2594120
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a
potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of
the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in
this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or
endorsed by the publisher.
Copyright © 2022 Li, Xu, Hao, Xiao and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use,
distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original
author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication
in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use,
distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
10 April 2022 | Volume 7 | Article 843090